context: The PRC's national security posture has undergone a fundamental reorientation since Xi Jinping 习近平 introduced the 'holistic national security concept' in 2014. Where previous administrations treated security as a precondition for development, Xi's framework collapses the distinction—the two are mutually constitutive. In practice this has meant a steady expansion of what counts as a security domain, now encompassing technology, data, food, energy, biology and low-altitude security, among others, with the Central National Security Commission pulling an ever-wider range of policy domains under centralised party control. The 15th 5-year plan elevation of 'coordinating development and security' as a guiding principle reflects a threat environment Beijing reads as the most dangerous since the reform era.
Chen Xiangyang 陈向阳 China Institute of Contemporary International Relations senior researcher, one of the PRC's most important state security think tanks with direct ties to the Ministry of State Security, published an article in China Emergency Management Science analysing the national security framework for the 15th 5-year plan period, structured around strategic assessment, principles and deployment.
- strategic assessment: challenges outweigh opportunities
- external environment
- the world is shifting toward an 'uneven multipolar' order centred on four-way competition among the PRC, the US, Russia and the EU
- US hegemony is weakening from within; Trump's 'America First' is deepening transatlantic divisions and widening cracks in Western alliances
- the Global South is growing in influence, reshaping the international balance of power
- geo-economic confrontation is identified by the WEF as the world's foremost risk; regional conflicts are proliferating
- the US is waging tariff, technology and resource wars against the PRC, seeking to contain the PRC through small-group coalitions
- the PRC is transitioning from 'follower' to 'frontrunner' in AI and low-altitude technology
- domestic environment
- GDP exceeded C￥140 tn in 2025 at 5 percent growth, but effective demand remains weak
- population decline and accelerating ageing require urgent attention
- risks in real estate, local debt and small financial institutions remain unresolved
- external environment
- strategic principle: coordinating development and security
- one of six guiding principles for the 15th 5-year plan; the explicit elevation of security is intended to correct officials' long-standing tendency to prioritise development over security
- core logic: new security framework to underpin new development framework
- domestic security governance to safeguard domestic circulation
- international security governance to safeguard international circulation
- new-quality productive forces and new-quality combat forces as the two sides of the same coin
- strategic deployment: four-in-one framework
- national security system
- centralised party leadership under the Central National Security Commission
- four sub-systems: rule-of-law, strategy, policy and risk control
- counter foreign interference and extraterritorial 'long-arm jurisdiction'
- advance the Global Security Initiative
- emerging domain security
- political security takes precedence over all other domains
- ten newly designated domains including AI, cyberspace, data, biology and—for the first time—low-altitude security
- public safety governance
- shift from reactive response to proactive prevention
- upgrade disaster monitoring, workplace safety and critical infrastructure protection
- social governance
- apply four governance principles: systemic, law-based, comprehensive and source-oriented
- develop the Fengqiao Experience; strengthen party-led grassroots governance
- national security system